Eat'n Park more than just restaurants

Everyone in western Pennsylvania knows Eat’n Park and its Smiley Cookie.

The restaurants dot Greater Pittsburgh and beyond, it’s well-known for its community work, it has two newer gourmet restaurants in Pittsburgh and there’s the hospitality unit that provides meals in places like Lycoming College in Williamsport and St. Clair Hospital. The power of the Smiley Cookie is vast.

For Kevin O’Connell, senior vice president of marketing at Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, the strength of the Eat’n Park Brand is all about relationships.

“Eat’n Park has been in Pittsburgh for 62 years, and we really focus on building those relationships,” O’Connell said.

The restaurant group gets a lot of its produce from local farms during the growing season, makes sustainability a deep part of its culture and makes a lot of its food from scratch in an industry that often resorts to bringing in bags of frozen food.

That extends to Six Penn Kitchen in Downtown Pittsburgh, which is owned by Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, as well as the soon-to-be-opened The Porch at Schenley in Oakland. Both are different from the traditional Eat’n Park restaurants but also share some key features.

“You don’t necessarily see an association with Eat’n Park restaurants, but they have similar values,” O’Connell said.

Those values — and the corporate citizenship that Eat’n Park has made a priority — extend to their community work with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and elsewhere.